Holiday Trivia

Fact: Elves are the longest-living people in the world, and are known for their natural ability to “make magic.”

Tales woven throughout history tell that some of the most magical elves are those who live and work at the North Pole. The elves care for Santa’s reindeer, sort letters from children, make the toys Santa delivers on Christmas Eve and keep Santa’s list of “good and bad” children.

The elves also choose the route Santa will follow on Christmas Eve, to make sure he has enough time to deliver toys to every child in the world on that one night.

Here’s some elf advice. If you ever run into an elf, don’t ask too many questions! Legend has it, they’re very stingy when asked to share details about their personal lives.

Candy Cane Quiz

What little-known U.S. holiday is celebrated on December 26?

It’s National Candy Cane Day! Here’s Some Candy Cane History:

The history of candy canes dates back to December 1670, when the choirmaster of the Cologne Cathedral in Germany gave sugar sticks in the shape of shepherds’ crooks to his young singers to keep them silent during a long performance of “The Nativity.”

In 1847, German immigrant August Ingaid unknowingly started a holiday tradition when he decorated a small spruce tree in his Ohio home with the “bent” sticks. But it wasn’t until the turn of the century that red and white stripes and peppermint flavors were added to the sticks, and they were renamed Candy Canes.

In the mid-1920s, Robert McCormack, of Albany, Georgia, made candy canes for his children as Christmas treats, shaping the sticks by hand, adding the peppermint flavor and painting them with red, food-color stripes.

It wasn’t until the late-1950s that the sticks were mass-produced. That’s when McCormack’s brother-in-law, Gregory Keller, invented a machine to produce candy canes. Months later, Keller engineered packaging used to ship the candy canes on a large scale – without breaking. Months later, Keller designed packaging that prevented the candy canes from breaking during shipment to retailers – and the rest is history!

New-millennium manufacturers produce more than 1.76 billion candy canes each year, enough to line the route to and from Santa’s North Pole Workshop 32 times!

How big was the biggest Candy Cane ever made in the U.S.? What did it weigh and how tall did it measure?

The biggest Candy Cane weighed more than 100 pounds, and stood a whopping 5-feet, 2-inches tall!